DANIEL KÖTTER CATALOGUE/ KATALOG 12 KOMPONISTEN/ 12 COMPOSERS With special thanks to the 12 composers, the interviewees and Niki Katsaounis, Kalliopi Simou, Myrto Stamboulou, Charlotte Misselwitz, Carla Saad, Nesli Gül, Daniel Cohen, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski 12 VIDEOS BY DANIEL KÖTTER Warsaw and Helena Nualart. Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri (12‘, HD, 2014) CAMERA/EDITING/TEXT SUBTITLES Josep Sanz (11‘, HD, 2014) DANIEL KÖTTER ALETTA VON VIETINGHOFF SOUND RECORDING/SOUND DESIGN/MIX TRANSLATIONS Samir Odeh-Tamimi (11‘30“, HD, 2014) MARCIN LENARCZYK JUSTINA BARTOLI Brahim Kerkour (12‘, HD, 2014) RECORDINGS TRIEST/BARCELONA WIELAND HOBAN ECKEHARD GÜTHER JAWAD ABU-SINNI Zad Moultaka (23‘, HD, 2014) ASSISTANT SOUND DESIGN MONTSERRAT VARELA Zaid Jabri (14‘, HD, 2014) ZOFIA MORUS ANNA ESCALA Amr Okba (14‘, HD, 2014) RESEARCH STEPHANIE FÄUSTEL Silvia Rosani (8‘, HD, 2014) Nimrod Katzir (16‘, HD, 2014) Daniel Peter Biro (15‘, HD, 2014) Impressum: Zeynep Gedizlioglu (9‘, HD, 2014) Evis Sammoutis (11‘, HD, 2014) Texts: Daniel Kötter Design (Cover): Jürgen Palmer www.youtube.com/medivoices Design (Catalogue): Nina Armbruster Commissioned by: KATALOG/ CATALOGUE Musik der Jahrhunderte Siemensstraße 13 70469 Stuttgart 144 MEDITERRANEAN ENTRIES, VIDEOS AND TEXT 0711 62 90 510 12 PROJECTIONS [email protected] TOTAL LENGTH: 3H 45MIN, HD, 2014, CATALOGUE Mediterranean Voices is supported by: Kulturstiftung des Bundes Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung #1-12 Panorama View 12‘ Goethe Institute and Federal Foreign Office #13-24 Port Tourism 16‘ Akademie Schloss Solitude #25-36 Crisis Europe 20‘ Canada Council for the Arts #37-48 Flight Space 21‘ Musik der Jahrhunderte is supported by: Stadt Stuttgart #49-60 Border Space 19‘ Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg #61-72 Diaspora Identity 21‘ #73-84 Theater Ritual 21‘ #85-96 Dreamlands 21‘ #97-108 Wastelands 18‘ #109-120 Transformation 22‘ #121-132 Public Space 14‘ #133-144 Protest Arrival 23‘ PANORAMA VIEW In contrast to the verticality of the landscapes and structures, traversing the maritime panorama calls for almost exclusively ho- rizontal movements. Departing, approa- ching, crossing over: ferries, container ships, rowboats and excursion boats serve as over-sized dollies for spectacular panoramas. Even those who intended to Literally translated, „Mediterranean“ refers travel around the Mediterranean by land to what lies between territories, within the will inevitably arrive at a water passage: mainland: the uninhabited, non-culturalised The Strait of Gibraltar, the only link transfer area on whose edges, that is, on between the Mediterranean and the At- whose coasts a myriad of spaces, architec- lantic Ocean. Like the Bosporus or the tures and cultures abound. Interestingly Suez Canal in the east, it separates the enough, the „middle“ of this outwardly continents and thereby also geographi- vaguely delineated but inwardly sharply cally divides the culturally and politically divided political and social area is a hole: sovereign territories. the Sea. Sparsely populated, it is a place of The exit of the largest ferry and commercial transit, a centre that neither demands nor trading port in the southwestern produces an identity of its own, but never- Mediterranean: In Algeciras, Spain, en theless offers up the use of its name to the route to Tanger-Med, Morocco. conglomerations on its shores. >> 14 / 18 / 57 Organising these complex spaces with a camera and microphone, cataloguing and categorising them is an intrinsically pre- tentious venture; even the most conscientiously subjective visual and tonal research will be fragmented. The Mediterranean region is nothing more When considering the land from the sea, one can easily become lost in the sheer diver- than an extended periphery around the sity of the structures and landscapes there. The view from land, on the other hand, is middle, the sea. The horizontal creates a relative homogenous (and homologous) panorama: A horizon line between sea and the dominant and provocative visual sky, regardless of the coast on which the camera happens to be positioned. In this first dimension. No wonder, then, that the catalogue entry, the camera is mounted on the second storey balcony of the Regency same narrative of the manmade vertical Hotel in the tourist town Monastir. The view is of the Tunisian Mediterranean on a windy features prominently in all of the three day, a section of the Mediterranean coast shared by price-conscious tourists from central world religions native to the Mediterranean: and northern Europe and those making their way from the coasts of nearby Libya to the European island of Lampedusa – and supposedly, salvation. „Go forth! Let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth!“ Today, the majority of the hotel rooms here – behind the camera and therefore not visible – are empty. A week ago, on the 30th of October, a man was arrested on the street A young member of the oldest Jewish Diaspora on the African continent – on the opposite the hotel. If he had succeeded in igniting his explosive belt before his arrest, it Tunisian holiday island Djerba – recites from the Torah. The story of the Tower of Babel would have been the first suicide bombing on Tunisian territory. expresses the diversity of the Mediterranean region as if it were legitimatised by com- mon origins. But it also leads from the horizontal emptiness of the sea to her shores, and >> EPILOGUE on to architecture that attempts to control visuality with its vertical expansion. >> 62 / 64 The construction of Burj El Murr in Bei- The top of this tower would be an excellent rut began simultaneously with the out- place to get a perspective of the sea‘s empty break of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. horizon; however, in the watchtower on Not only is the impressive tower in close the beach where Israel and the Gaza Strip proximity to the Lebanese coast, allowing meet, the camera is just as taboo as it is in a view of Cyprus from its uppermost levels, Beirut‘s Murr Tower. Instead of filming the it is only a few several hundred metres from sea from the tower, the camera captures the Green Line that separated the rival the tower itself – until the frontier soldiers‘ groups of the Civil War for seventeen years. warning sirens put an end to it. The view Snipers had an ideal visual survey of the area and all the way to the coastline from the from the control tower somehow seems anachronistic in the face of a border on a beach building‘s shell. Twenty-eight of the planned forty storeys were completed when the war that essentially separates Israeli and Palestine territories. As far as the eye can see and the broke out. In 2014, Burj El Murr is unchanged: incomplete, uninhabited and perforated ear can hear, the beach is full of cheerful Israeli beachgoers. Even after their retreat from with bullet holes. the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel still maintains control of the area‘s airspace. Using the most Today, the gaping window-holes in the slender concrete colossus would give visitors an modern drone technology available, they guard the area, shooting their Palestine targets unobstructed view of the glass façades of luxury hotels around the new harbour and the from the air. When the vertical perspective disconnects from the body as well as from the yacht club at Zaituna Bay. The hotel guests there are primarily from the Arabian Gulf. But built environment, the construction of towers becomes superfluous. the camera has to stay outside: The view is still reserved for soldiers from the Lebanese >> 40 / 59 / 82 / 83 / EPILOGUE army. >> 104 / 114 / 125 The view from a tower allows survey of an area and facilitates control and contempla- The tower creates an interruption in the tion. A human viewing a tower, however, vertical axis of the camera‘s horizontal also senses the tower‘s fundamental 16:9 panorama. The natural boundary that (economic) power and prestige. With its is the Mediterranean has never prevented 345 high-rises, Benidorm, Spain‘s classic its inhabitants from taking advantage of centre of tourism, boasts the highest ratio the possibility to traverse the water on a of skyscrapers to official residents in the horizontal plane and settle on the opposi- world. During the tourist season, over one te shores. There was a time when Europe and a half million people temporarily gaze out at the sea from their hotel rooms. The sought to expand its outermost bounda- Edificio Intempo Benidorm, on the other hand, will provide a permanent ocean view for ries deep into the African continent instead of „fortifying“ the Mediterranean Sea with its predominantly Russian residents when it opens in 2014. 47 storeys high and 188 Frontex to prevent the arrival of African immigrants. One of the few relics of this period metres tall, it will be the largest building of flats in the EU. Spain‘s real estate bubble are Spain‘s two colonial exclaves, Melilla and Ceuta. With these two cities, the boundaries and countless construction scandals delayed completion of the tower. The hubris of the of the EU include territory in Africa. A contemplative gaze from the towers, here in tower‘s construction not only sparked a number of legitimising narratives, but also, occa- Melilla, does not rest on the nearby sea, but allows the tower keeper a privileged view of sionally, a rumour: in August of 2012, respectable international media incorrectly reported Morocco. A surprise onslaught of camping migrants and refugees in the forests around that planners of the Intempo had simply forgotten to build lifts in the skyscraper. A tower the exclaves might thus be less surprising. in which vertical mobility is impossible is like a sea without maritime traffic.